The barometric pressure and the local news have been building up for a gale. Very exciting—unless you are on the streets, where dryness strategy in this town is thin—but where is our inundation? Still it’s grey and 100% humidity—a luxury only because it’s such a contrast. Turns down the volume on the outside world and brings the dissertation on strong. Mmmm. What if I ever return to my Pacific Northwest? The years in Seattle and Portland drove me to prolixity, writing-wise. Soul drunk on moisture, with Heraclitus insisting this was not good for me. Why? Maybe this seduction for rain will only make me more prosey and I should orient to… Elko?
Anyway, it is wet. And I love what a storm does for the inside spaces mental and otherwise. Steamy mysore rooms; intimate cafes; sheltering car; and my apartment so cozy for being in.
Speaking of everyday life, we decided to start going to the movies more than once a year. Both the good art-houses are within blocks, but since we saw I’m Not There at the new Landmark, it’s the only place I want to go. Place is crazy! It recalls theatres in poor countries (where rich people zones are—in the absence of a middle class—injected with markers of extreme class domination, such as ultraplush giant seating and snack-delivery direct to your seat courtesy some minion). But I guess the polarized class structure of the Westside increasingly resembles that of Latin America, so it’s no surprise. And FWIW, the Landmark is a trip. You select your seat numbers when you buy tickets from the “host,” wait for the show in an ultramoderne cocktail lounge, order fresh bruschetta, and piss behind frosted glass. Another “host” introduces the film and stays onhand in the aisles in case you need her to bring you a tissue or read you subtitles. Is this a strange place to go see Persepolis today after my always-unmentionable activities at the Masonic Temple conclude?
â— Freerice. If you have a problem with this, holler at Patrick. Not me.
â— Orlando posture enforcement.
â— This year’s World Question is What Have You Changed Your Mind About?
â— Ok. Hilarious. The sociology blogosphere just got really excited about this crude “How privileged are you?” survey. Sociologist are brilliant at parsing hierarchy… and they can also be totally self-deceiving about it. Cartographers of race, class, gender and national origin; appraisers of intellectual, cultural and money capital; and inventors of the backasswards “I’m more oppressed than you” game. Ohhh, confusing ourselves with our own categories. But this is interesting as a vague social locator and, more than that, an a suggestion of all the income-independent ways we are enriched. (Yes, I changed my mind about materialism a long time ago.)
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